* I just can't bring myself to watch Fox & Friends. I swear to Vishnu, Fox's morning show looks like a parody of a conservative morning talk show you'd see in a dystopian Verhoeven near-future SciFi flick. Five or ten minutes' exposure to that bubble-headed prattle sucks IQ points from my head like a shop-vac in a Dixie cup..

Yeah, but on Fox and Friends, they are wearing skirts! And...well, yeah. I'm not really sure what that means about their target demographic.

I don't watch the news in the morning anymore...I flip between CMT/VH1 and the Weather Channel. I have just as much effect on the Weather as I do on what the Republicant's are gonna do, so I might as well pay attention to the more useful one.

Having been following C.J.'s NYT column before the book came out, I knew it would be good (as indeed it was).

Oh, and Tam, I think you are the perfect person to author your proposed "The Other Gun".

On another note, having just received a copy of "Steam, Steel and Shellfire", another tome you spoke well of, I became aware that is is actually the 4th volume of an intended 12 volume run on naval history. have you read any of the other titles?

Not a big surprise that Firefox knows Kalashnikov, actually. Russia/Soviet Union had/has no consumer brand name known worldwide (Think Sony, Apple, Mercedes, Microsoft, etc etc). But if there's anyone anywhere who doesn't know either Kalashnikov or AK, it must be someone like those Japanese soldiers who have been hiding in the jungle since 1945.

Looks like she is reading up so all of MSNBC can refer to her on gun issues. That maybe what they are doing now.....who cares it's not like anyone watches that channel outisde of you for purely perverse reasons. ;-)